Apartment building on the South Side. Chicago, Illinois, April 1941. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
With the success of the far right wing phony populist movement, orchestrated by the Super Rich, we all, with few exceptions, are heading into what I call Ghetto Amerika. For decades the controlled media and embedded in empire politicians sold us the Lie that segments of our working stiffs are ‘ Middle Class’. To this writer Middle Class means you are earning upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars per year, with a household income approaching or surpassing $ 500k annually. Not many of us are in that pay grade folks. Check out the words of the fine song by War from, believe it or not, 1973:
The World Is a Ghetto
Song by WAR
Walkin’ down the street, smoggy-eyed
Looking at the sky, starry-eyed
Searchin’ for the place, weary-eyed
Crying in the night, teary-eyed
Don’t you know that it’s true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto
Don’t you know that it’s true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto
Wonder when I’ll find paradise
Somewhere there’s a home sweet and nice
Wonder if I’ll find happiness
Never give it up now I guess
Don’t you know that it’s true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto
Don’t you know that it’s true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto
The ghetto, once reserved for the very poor and indigent, will be ‘ Opened for business’ throughout Amerika. Our far right wing driven Supreme Court has just allowed outright Fascism! Imagine that an elected or appointed official can now get ‘ Paid Off’ for his or her decisions supposedly in the public interest. There are countless films, many of them from the 30s and 40s, that told us, in black and white, how bribery was terrible and Un-American. No more, friends!
Treading the court’s ruling into presidential immunity may be too much to bear for any law abiding and sincere believer in our nation’s Democratic Republic. Trump likes to call what he believes is being done to him a ‘ Banana Republic’. Well, what the Supremes just did was handing a president the right to decide life and death, with NO constitutional oversight. One may ask ” Why in the hell is this all happening… Now!?
It’s easy gang. This is all coming to a head, like that pus pimple on your face that you had as a teenager. The Super Rich, the ones usually hidden from the public view, want a return to
Feudalism! Instead of the Lord of the Manor with his Serfs working only for him, and renting only from him their shelter, and buying only from him their food and clothing, we have the Corporations owning us. Shrewdly, they distribute their tyranny. One corporate master owns the labor force ( remember, only less than 10% of US workers belong to a union); Another one owns your shelter; Another sells the serfs their food and necessities. This new Fascism has deleted government oversight and regulations, so everything goes folks.
Allow me to end this retort by saying what must be said: As sometimes futile as voting has become, this year the Republicans must be stopped in their tracks! We must support the Democrats, and as the great Noam Chomsky put it: Just hold your nose and do it!
PA Farruggio
July, 2024